The most common answer to “what are the two types of online communities” is open and private: a split by who can get in. Some writers split by purpose instead. The pair changes from source to source, and we won’t pretend there is one official list. For choosing software, a finer list helps more. We use twelve working types, and each one needs a different mix of features: what members do there, what the platform must support, and which part of BuddyNext or its family covers it.
We make BuddyNext and the family plugins it connects to, so read our picks with that in mind. Where a type needs something BuddyNext doesn’t do, we say so.
What are the two types of online communities?
Two splits turn up most often.
| Split | The two types | What it decides |
|---|---|---|
| By access | Open (public) and private (members only) | Who can read, and how people get in |
| By purpose | Communities of interest and communities of practice | Why people show up |
The access split is the one that affects your software first. An open community lets search engines and guests read posts, which brings in traffic. A private one hides the feed until someone joins, which makes people more candid and gives you something to charge for.
Most real communities are both at once. A brand might run a public Q&A area and a private area for customers who’ve bought. BuddyNext handles this with spaces. A space can be open to everyone, private with a join request that an owner approves, or secret and invite-only, hidden from the directory. You can read the details in the docs on space types and privacy.
The purpose split is looser. A community of interest forms around a topic, such as running or board games. A community of practice forms around a job, such as nurses or WordPress developers. The twelve types below sit inside those two ideas and get more specific.
How do you pick a type?
Start with the one thing a member should do on a typical visit. If the answer is “get an answer”, you’re building a support community. If it’s “finish a lesson”, you’re building a course community. Don’t pick the type from a list of features. Pick it from the behavior you want to see weekly.
Then ask three questions about each type:
- What do members do there? The daily loop.
- What must the platform support? The features that, if missing, break the loop.
- Which BuddyNext setup covers it, and in which tier? What you install and what you pay for.
For quick reference, the table below names the main family piece behind each type. “Bridge” means the BuddyNext side of the connection.
| Type | Main piece | Bridge tier |
|---|---|---|
| Brand or customer | BuddyNext spaces, Jetonomy | Free |
| Support or Q&A | Jetonomy | Free |
| Course or learning | Learnomy | Pro |
| Paid membership | BuddyNext plans and gated spaces | Pro |
| Interest or hobby | BuddyNext, WPMediaVerse | Free |
| Professional | BuddyNext, Career Board | Free core, jobs Pro |
| Local | BuddyNext, Listora, Eventonomy | Free core, the two plugins Pro |
| Nonprofit | BuddyNext, Eventonomy | Free core, events Pro |
| Internal | BuddyNext private and secret spaces | Free |
| Creator and fan | BuddyNext, plans, scheduled posts | Free core, selling Pro |
| Event-based | Eventonomy | Pro |
| Directory or marketplace | Listora, Career Board | Pro |
Brand and customer communities
What members do: Customers ask each other how to get more from a product, show what they’ve made, and tell the company what’s missing. Staff reply in the open, so every answer helps the next customer.
What it needs: A feed for announcements and wins, spaces for each product or topic, a place for threaded questions, profiles with a customer badge or label, and moderation so a bad day doesn’t turn public.
BuddyNext setup: Spaces and the feed are in BuddyNext Free. Add Jetonomy for threaded Q&A (the bridge is Free and the free Jetonomy covers it). A space owner turns on the forum tab for that space. If you want a customer-only area, make it a private space. In BuddyNext Pro, gated spaces can tie a space to a paid plan, and member labels mark staff and customers visibly.
Our longer walkthrough is Brand community: customers who sell for you. If your customers are mostly asking for features, Product feedback community covers that loop.
Support and Q&A communities
What members do: They post a problem, others answer, and the person who asked marks the answer that worked. Over time the answers pile up into a searchable library.
What it needs: Threads, not a stream. Accepted answers, voting and search that finds old threads. Notifications that reach the asker when someone replies. Moderators who can merge, pin and close.
BuddyNext setup: This is Jetonomy’s job. A discussion started in a public space posts a card in the feed, goes into community search and counts on the author’s profile. Replies, mentions and accepted answers reach the BuddyNext bell. Private spaces and private topics never reach the feed. The bridge is in BuddyNext Free, and the free Jetonomy covers it. See the forum and community guide for the setup.
A feed alone is the wrong tool here. A feed buries yesterday’s answer under today’s news, and a support community lives on old answers. SaaS community: replace the support ticket queue shows how a product team uses this.
Course and learning communities
What members do: They work through lessons together, ask questions beside the lesson and share what they’ve finished. The community is what keeps people past week two.
What it needs: Lessons, quizzes and certificates somewhere, plus a social layer where learners can talk. Completion has to be visible to the group, or it feels like a video library with a comment box.
BuddyNext setup: Learnomy is our course plugin and runs without BuddyNext. With BuddyNext Pro, a course completion posts a card and so does a certificate, linking to a public verification page. Enrollment never posts. Course alerts gather in the bell under a Courses source. Course content isn’t in community search. Without BuddyNext Pro, Learnomy still works, it just doesn’t post into the feed.
Read Online course community on WordPress for the full path. For use-case writing, see Online academy and Community for online courses.
Paid membership communities
What members do: They pay for access to people, content or a regular session, and they expect the space to feel worth it every month.
What it needs: Plans with a price and a billing schedule, a way to charge by card, access rules that follow the plan, renewal reminders and a pricing page that works for visitors who aren’t members yet.
BuddyNext setup: This is BuddyNext Pro. Membership plans carry a price, a schedule and perks, and members subscribe to the plan they want. Gated spaces lock a space behind a plan. There are bridges that grant access from WooCommerce and Paid Memberships Pro orders, so you can keep a store you already run. Coupons, tax and renewal reminders are Pro too.
Decide up front which system owns the money. Plans in BuddyNext Pro and orders in WooCommerce are separate paths, and running both without a plan leads to confusion. Our walkthrough is how to start a paid membership community. Related use cases: expert membership and coaching.
Interest and hobby communities
What members do: They share what they’re into. Photos of a build, a reading list, a run, a game clip. The tone is casual and the volume is high.
What it needs: Easy posting with photos, reactions, polls, hashtags, a sense of who’s online, and enough moderation tools to keep a friendly tone.
BuddyNext setup: Almost all of this is BuddyNext Free: the composer, reactions, polls, hashtags, bookmarks, mentions and presence. Photo and file posts come from WPMediaVerse, with the bridge in Free. Points and badges, which hobby groups tend to like, come from WB Gamification, also a Free bridge. BuddyNext awards no points on its own. WB Gamification owns every rule.
Pick a use case close to yours: book club, fitness or gaming. If you want regular meetups, add Eventonomy (see event-based below).
Professional and networking communities
What members do: They look for peers, trade advice, swap leads and sometimes hire each other. Identity matters, so profiles do real work.
What it needs: A searchable member directory, rich profiles, connections and direct messages, ways to tell members apart (by role or industry), and often a jobs board.
BuddyNext setup: The directory, member types, follows, connections and profile fields are BuddyNext Free. Direct messages run on WPMediaVerse, with the bridge in Free. Advanced profile fields and advanced search are Pro. For jobs, WP Career Board is our job board plugin. Its bridge is in BuddyNext Pro: a published job posts a card and is indexed for search, and expired jobs drop out of the feed. Resumes need Career Board Pro, and they aren’t searchable in the community.
Related reading: Professional networking community, Alumni community, Mentorship community, Mastermind community and Investor community.
Local and neighbourhood communities
What members do: They find nearby businesses, ask for recommendations, hear about what’s on this weekend and organize things on their street.
What it needs: A directory of places and services, an events calendar, spaces by area, and approval of new members so outsiders and spam stay out.
BuddyNext setup: Spaces by neighbourhood and a join-request gate are Free. Listora is our directory plugin: with BuddyNext Pro, a published listing posts a card and goes into community search. Eventonomy adds events (Pro bridge). Listora keeps its own notification centre, so its alerts don’t reach the BuddyNext bell today.
See Local community platform, which also covers the neighbor-to-neighbor case. The events and directory guide covers the two plugins in more depth.
Nonprofit and cause communities
What members do: Volunteers, donors and staff coordinate. They share updates, sign up to help, and get reminders about what’s coming.
What it needs: Invitations (often to a list you already hold), announcements everyone sees, groups by chapter or project, events with RSVPs, and email that reaches people who aren’t logged in.
BuddyNext setup: Single and bulk invitations (a CSV, up to 500 rows per upload), announcements and spaces are Free. Events come from Eventonomy, with the bridge in Pro. Broadcast email and drip sequences are Pro. BuddyNext doesn’t ship a donation form that we document, so use the donation tool you already trust beside it and keep the community for coordination.
More detail: Nonprofit community: connect your cause to volunteers.
Internal and employee communities
What members do: Staff read announcements, ask questions across teams, recognize colleagues and find who knows what.
What it needs: Strict privacy, a clear way to tell staff from guests, roles for HR and managers, strong sign-in and the ability to wall off whole teams.
BuddyNext setup: Secret spaces are hidden from the directory and open by invite only, and private spaces need approval. Roles, member types, two-factor sign-in and email verification are Free. Everything on the community is behind login if you set it private. Run it on your own server so data stays where your policy needs it. The private community guide goes through the setup.
Use case write-up: Internal community: one your team opens daily.
Creator and fan communities
What members do: Followers come for the person or the work, then stay for each other. They react, vote in polls and hear news first.
What it needs: A feed the creator can post to quickly, scheduled posts, polls, a tier of paid supporters, and a way to feature top posts.
BuddyNext setup: The feed, polls, reactions and announcements are Free. Paid supporter tiers, scheduled posts, multi-pin posts and custom reactions are Pro. Member Blog, a Free bridge, lets members publish longer articles. Member articles aren’t indexed in community search.
Related: Fan community and Creator community.
Event-based communities
What members do: They gather around something with a date: a conference, a cohort, a weekly workshop. Activity spikes before and after the event.
What it needs: An event page with capacity, RSVPs, reminders, and a place to talk before and after. Past events should stay findable.
BuddyNext setup: Eventonomy is our events plugin. With BuddyNext Pro, publishing an event posts a card and adds it to search. Members can say Going or Maybe from the card, and the headcount updates for everyone. Profiles and spaces get an Events tab, and cancelling an event removes its cards. For the conversation, make one space per event or cohort.
If you want a meetup-style community, pair a space with Eventonomy. The Eventonomy integration page lists what shows up where.
Directory and marketplace communities
What members do: They list what they offer and find what they need: freelancers, businesses, jobs, second-hand gear.
What it needs: Listings with fields and categories, search and filters, a submission flow with review, and a community around the listings so buyers and sellers talk.
BuddyNext setup: Listora handles listings and Career Board handles jobs. Both bridges are in BuddyNext Pro. A published listing posts a card and is searchable, and unpublishing hides the card. WP Sell Services and WB Ad Manager are other Wbcom plugins, but neither has a BuddyNext bridge today, so we don’t claim a connection.
Use cases: Community marketplace, Niche job board and Freelance marketplace.
What if my community is two types at once?
Most are. A course business is a course community and a paid membership. A brand is a customer community with a support wing. A local group is local, event-based and a directory.
Treat each type as a space or a plugin, not a separate site. One BuddyNext install can hold a public brand space, a private paid space and a staff space. Members keep one account and one profile across them. That’s the practical reason to build on an engine rather than a single-purpose tool.
Start with the loop you most need and add the next one when members ask for it. Building all twelve on day one means nobody’s sure where to go.
Which setup should you start with?
- You want customers to help each other: BuddyNext Free plus Jetonomy. No Pro needed.
- You want to charge for access: BuddyNext Pro for plans and gated spaces, with Free as the base.
- You run courses: Learnomy, plus BuddyNext Pro if you want completions in the feed.
- You run events or a local group: Eventonomy and Listora, with BuddyNext Pro for the bridges.
- Staff only: BuddyNext Free with secret spaces and a private community setting.
If you’re coming from a hosted platform, there’s no one-click importer. Export your members’ emails where the old platform allows it and use the bulk CSV invite. Importers exist only for BuddyPress and BuddyBoss sites. Our self-hosted community platform guide covers the trade-offs, and the all-in-one comparison sets BuddyNext beside BuddyBoss, FluentCommunity and BuddyPress.
BuddyNext launched in June 2026, so it’s newer than the options it competes with, and it has no native mobile app yet. It does ship an installable web app. If a store-listed app is a hard requirement today, check the mobile app guide before you decide.
When you’re ready, you can open the live demo (a four-hour sandbox that asks for your email) and click through the screens named above, or download the free plugin and build the first space yourself.
